A tale of two cores

This tale lasts about four and a half weeks. It is a tale about radiators. Liquid to air heat exchangers. Once again, I have to review this "subaru lego" myth. It was supposed to be a simple swap-out, swap-in process. A day's task at most, but let's just say we had a really long groundhogs day.

Well, this is how we started out.

Bay preps: Clean your working area

Spic and span. Ready toget some work done. Most items had been mounted and bolted in place.

Old radiator: OEM item

Out with the old

I was quick to dismiss this one. Let it go as soon as it was off the car. Some lucky owner. I should have held on for a bit longer.

The replacement: Mishimoto

This was carried over from the parts bin and was supposed to be savior. Well, as is evident from the pics and previous blog posts, it was too big.

The other replacement: ARC

This was the second attempt. Good quality. Had been in service for a while but confirmed pressure test was ok. However, the brackets were in a sorry state and I was overzealous in my efforts to get them restored. Both bolts holding the snapped as I attempted to open them. Yeah, oh snap! This was the beginning of hell.

Tapping out: Too corroded

They got out with too much effort and a load of aluminum. Too much. Upon delivery for mounting, we found that the bolt holes had not been threaded.

During threading, one side was damaged an it took another three days or so to get that sorted out.

Mounting: rework is waste

RHS

LHS

Fans and shroud mounted.

We had to rework the bottom brackets. Redrill and round file to accommodate the newer size bolts. A lot of measuring, drilling and filing later, we finally had the brackets on. Success.

Next challenge: Fitment

Front elevation

Side elevation

The engine bay for the GC chassis is just a bit smaller than the GD, which is the donor. While it may not seem like much, those few centimeters or millimeters for that case make a huge difference. We dry fitted the ARC rad and everything seemed snug. Now we could begin the next struggle to fit everything else around it. Harnesses, oil cooler piping, PS cooler piping and the hot and cold side hoses (though both are usually hot to the touch; do not let the naming deceive you).

Top elevation:

Things were fitting just right.

Hard lines: Exit stage left

As we dry fitted the piping, it was immediately apparent that the OEM hard lines would be an issue. They could not be bent into shape without affecting their structural integrity and we were not going to take any risks given that these are high pressure lines. In the next post, hopefully we will have the final picture with the braided lines that would replace these.

In other news: Panels in

Replacement doors and trunk lid sit silently in the corner awaiting their turn to get some attention. But that's a story for another time.

Almost there: boost loading soon

Now to wait for the rest of the pieces to fall into place.